Nottingham Forest

Nottingham Forest hold the single most absurd statistical distinction in European football: they have won the European Cup more times than they have won the English league title. Two continental crowns, in 1979 and 1980, versus one league championship in 1977-78. Let that settle for a moment. Under Brian Clough — a man whose genius was matched only by his capacity for antagonising everyone around him — Forest achieved something so improbable that it makes every other underdog story in sport look like a warm-up act. Based on the banks of the River Trent, the club returned to the Premier League in 2022 after a 23-year exile and have refused to play the grateful newcomer.

Nuno Espirito Santo has turned Forest into a side that nobody wants to face. The Portuguese manager’s approach is pragmatic, meticulously organised, and spectacularly effective — qualities that will never make him fashionable among the tactical aesthetes but have made the City Ground one of the Premier League’s most treacherous away days. The 30,602-capacity ground is undergoing modernisation, and rightly so; a club with two European Cups on the mantelpiece deserves facilities that match its pedigree.

For Australian fans, Forest’s story is irresistible. A club that spent decades in the wilderness, came back, and immediately started competing for European places — if that does not stir something in you, you might want to check your pulse.

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Forest’s 2025-26 season is about proving that their Premier League resurgence is not a pleasant accident but a permanent state of affairs. European competition is a realistic ambition — and for a club that once conquered the continent under Clough, it should be an expectation. Nuno has strengthened the squad to compete on multiple fronts, and the City Ground atmosphere on matchdays is the kind of visceral, confrontational noise that modern football desperately needs more of. The fanbase has not merely embraced this new era; they have demanded it. Nottingham Forest are not here for a visit. They are here to stay, and they are here to cause problems.

VS — Chief sports columnist, australiafootball.com